Trailblazer Reynaud Alexander has a legacy in local track & field

Reynaud Alexander has dedicated his life to teaching young black women to run fast. So, it should come as no surprise that Alexander, a 72-year-old retired track and field coach, refuses to slow down.

Susan Poag / The Times-PicayuneNew Orleans native Reynaud Alexander, a former Southern University track athlete, in 1967 founded the Dryades Street YMCA Track Cub for Girls, the first black club in New Orleans. Many of his athletes received college scholarships.

He plans to attend the Southwestern Athletic Conference Track and Field Championships at Tad Gormley Stadium this weekend, and he surely won’t resist the temptation to impart a bit of coaching wisdom on the competitors.

“I tell my athletes that the key to success is about balancing intensity and volume,” said Alexander, who was born and reared in New Orleans. “You don’t want to burn out too early.”

And judging by a lifetime of accomplishments as a coach, teacher and civil rights activist, Alexander has maintained a strict adherence to this credo.

“He is an exceptionally giving person, and he cares about everybody,” said his wife, Loretta Alexander. “I have to fight for time because he is always so giving of himself to everyone else.”

Alexander has been coaching for more than 50 years and said he routinely receives calls from parents wanting him to mentor their daughters. He ran track at Southern, served as head coach at McDonogh High School from 1980 to 1991 and as an assistant coach at Mississippi State from 1991 to 2002 before retiring.

During the past year, Alexander has stepped away from his role as volunteer coach at Higgins High School and New Era (AAU) Track and Field Club, focusing instead on his family. He now bides his time coaching grandsons Donovan Carraby, 11, and Niles Cosey, 8.

“He’s always so busy,” said Carraby, an aspiring baseball star. “It means a lot to me that my grandfather can help me with my speed.”

Glynn Alexander, who was a defensive back at Grambling State and with the Buffalo Bills, said coaching is in his older brother’s DNA.

“It’s in his nature,” Glynn Alexander said. “He’s always been involved in coaching.”

Reynaud Alexander recalled the exact moment he decided to become a coach.

“I watched Wilma Rudolph win gold in the 1960 Rome Olympics,” he said. “That really lit my fire. Ed Temple was the coach of the U.S. team, and I really admired him because in those days it was taboo for men to coach women.”

The Dryades Street Girls

In 1967, Alexander, then a teacher at Cohen High, established the Dryades Street YMCA Track Team for Girls — the first black club in New Orleans. A self-described track and field fanatic, Alexander had grown tired of witnessing the talents of athletically gifted black girls ignored.

Susan Poag / The Times-PicayuneReynaud Alexander, 72, who coached at McDonogh High School and was an assistant at Mississippi State, these days works with grandsons Donovan Carraby, 11, and Niles Cosey, 8. He still gets calls to mentor young athletes, however.

“When I was in high school, so many of my girlfriends at Booker T. Washington were amazing athletes who had no opportunities to showcase their talents,” Alexander said. “It always bothered me that nothing was expected out of girls in the Deep South but to be mommas. I wanted to see young African-American girls in high school develop.

“I knew they had a lot of talent, and there weren’t any avenues for them to do that.”

Before Alexander founded Dryades Street, the preeminent track team in New Orleans was the all-white Crescent City Track Club. Alexander sought out Crescent City’s coach, John Boyer, for advice on how to start a club of his own. But Alexander was not allowed inside NORD Stadium (now Harrell Playground), where the team practiced.

“We had to stand outside of a lot of fences in those days,” Alexander said. “It was a scary thing to go watch young white girls run around in shorts. If I would have gone inside the fence, I would have been arrested.”

The two coaches developed a friendship, and Boyer helped steer Alexander through the development process.

“I didn’t care who talked to me,” Boyer said. “White, black, it didn’t matter. As long as they were talking track and field. I was happy (Alexander) wanted to start a club. We were really neglecting those (black) girls.”

Alexander secured a sponsorship agreement with the YMCA.

“Ron Henderson ran the YMCA and offered me his full support,” Alexander said. “He provided a facility, transportation, fundraising — really whatever we needed. Without Ron, we didn’t have anything.”

Education the key

From the start, Alexander said he was undeterred by the naysayers who considered the team a pipe dream. He believed the team gave young black women an opportunity to pursue a college education.

Alexander credits his mother, who was a schoolteacher, for his insistence that team members pursue higher education.

“She helped me understand that education was a priority,” Alexander said about his mother, Irma Alexander, who died when he was 11. “She made a lasting impression on me in a very short time.”

One of the team’s founding members, Geneva Stark, said Alexander and the team provided an opportunity for a better life.

“He was not only an educator, he was a father figure who provided us an opportunity to travel across the county,” said Stark, who holds a doctorate in education and is the president of the Greater Louisville (Ky.) Alliance of Black Educators. “He exposed us to a world we would have otherwise not known. I can’t ever repay him for the exposure and opportunity he provided. As a result, I am an educator, and my obligation is to be able to go on and do what I can to assist other people, as he assisted me and many other ladies across the country.”

The Dryades Street girls were the second black team to compete in the Southern AAU, following Willie McCoy’s Nugant Center (Miss.) team. The Dryades Street team became recognized as one of the top programs in the county, consisting of multiple All-Americans and national champions, including Pamela Jiles, who won a silver medal in the 1,600-meter relay at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal.

The team, which later became known as the Superdames, outgrew the YMCA, which ended its sponsorship in 1975.

Alexander believes his legacy is the success of the countless women he directed to historically black universities, some of whom have gone on to careers in law, banking and education, among others.

“The SWAC has been an important part of my life,” Alexander said. “The historical black universities offered an opportunity to go to college. They took the time to nurture African-Americans who were unprepared because of the systems they came from.”